TRANSIENT Laboratory and Academy 2022

...alive: Nature and Music

Shortly after the second station of the TRANSIENT Impulse Festival 2021 on the theme “Beginning” at the locations Bad Münstereifel, Nettersheim and Kronenburg, the Eifel was hit hard by the flood disaster.
It quickly became clear that, in addition to the immediate urgent requirements of the situation on site, joint research with the local partners and communities for common artistic themes and ideas would first be necessary before any thought could be given to a next festival edition.
With the support of the Kunststiftung NRW, an artistic laboratory project on the theme of …alive: Nature and Music was developed and expanded to include an academy with music students, from whose circle the next Junior Fellows for 2023 were to be selected. In addition to artists from the TRANSIENT Interdisciplinary Research Ensemble, who were also available as mentors, film artist Wiebke Pöpel and visual artist Robert Eugler were part of the artistic research team.  
Young professional musicians and advanced music students could apply with their own projects for participation in the first TRANSIENT Academy 2022 in Kronenburg (Eifel). In addition to coaching by TRANSIENT artists, excursions to the locations of the laboratory phase, joint performances and lecture concerts were organized. The selected participants of the TRANSIENT Academy 2022 were Stella Louise Göke (Cologne), Alessandra Riudalbas Wickers and David Auli Morales (Freiburg), Katharina König (Münster), Laura Jordan-Bertinelli (Düsseldorf), Fiona Zimmermann (Nuremberg), Annette Fritz (Salzburg), Luke Pan (Aachen) and Sebastian Wulff (Düsseldorf). Over the course of the Academy week, the Freiburg artist Robert Eugler developed an installation made of natural materials in a room of the Kronenburg Academy.
Visual artist Robert Eugler and artist and educator Elke Strauch focused their joint research work on the Wallgraben site on the edge of Bad Münstereifel’s old town. For this “no man’s land” between the city and nature, a participatory project was developed for and with students from St. Michael Gymnasium.
Together with the TRANSIENT network artists Elke Strauch (Bad Münstereifel) and Frank Reinshagen (Kronenburg), several research phases took place on site in the Eifel. Landscapes and places in nature and in public space were artistically explored in order to find a form of interaction with them that was to be included in the 2023 festival. The piece “Ryoanji” by John Cage served as a “catalyst”, being performed and filmed (Wiebke Pöpel) at several outdoor locations during this research, mirroring the characteristics and differences of the various environments and landscapes. Visual artist Robert Eugler and artist and educator Elke Strauch centered their joint research on the site of the Wallgraben on the edge of the old town of Bad Münstereifel. For this “no man’s land” between city and nature, a participatory project was developed for and with students of the St. Michael Gymnasium.
At the end of the research year on 24.11. 2022, a joint performance of TRANSIENT artists with students and teachers of the St. Michael Gymnasium took place on the terraces at the Wallgraben in the immediate vicinity of the old town of Bad Münstereifel, which had been severely affected by the flood. Until then, the students of Elke Strauch’s art course had been at this place every week and had developed ideas for pictures and performances, which were now exhibited and performed on the project day. For this place and this occasion, Robert Eugler developed a second installation from natural materials found on site, which also became part of a joint performance with the students.